attempted to convince McQueen to retire and become a racing brand. McQueen convinces him to give him a chance at winning the Florida 500, then McQueen could decide when to stop racing to which Sterling reluctantly agrees. Cruz Ramirez (voiced by Cristela Alonzo) is Lightning McQueen's trainer and technician at the Rust-eze Racing Center. She is known for training some of the best newer elite rookies through her unconventional training methods. She is assigned to train McQueen for the Florida 500. Cruz and McQueen later head to Thomasville where they meet Hudson's former crew chief, Smokey. Smokey trains McQueen and inspires Cruz as well. At the Florida 500, Cruz is sent back to the Racing Center. McQueen exits the race to allow Cruz to race. Using what she's learned on the road, Cruz catches up to Jackson Storm, who tries to overtake her. However, Cruz flips over him and lands in first place. She returned in Cars 3: Driven to Win as one of the main characters and a starting playable character along with McQueen, Mater, Sally, Ramone and Guido. Dinoco team Strip "The King" Weathers (voiced by Richard Petty) is a "Dinoco-blue" veteran race car and racing legend. Weathers is an anthropomorphic version of Petty's aerodynamic 1970 Plymouth Superbird, sporting same shade of blue and Petty's race car number, 43 and is also a fictionalized version of him. He is one of the race cars in the 2005 Piston Cup three-way tie, along with Chick Hicks and Lightning McQueen. He is Dinoco's "Golden Boy", having won seven Piston Cups, and is hoping for his eighth in the tiebreaker race before entering retirement so he can spend more time with his wife. He returns in Cars 3 as the crew chief of his nephew and new Dinoco racer Cal Weathers. HTB team Chick Hicks (voiced by Michael Keaton in Cars, the video game adaption, and Cars Race-O-Rama, Bob Peterson in Cars 3) is Lightning McQueen's primary rival in the first film. He returns in Cars 3, being voiced by Bob Peterson due to Keaton's scheduling conflicts with Spider-Man: Homecoming. In this film, he now hosts his own talk show, Chick's Picks on Racing Sports Network. Chick returns in the Cars video game, which is written by Pixar and considered a continuation to the story started in the movie. Despite the fact he did not appear in Cars 2, he does